


Dimidium

by Charles_Rockafellor



Series: Love against the darkness [8]
Category: Futurama, Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), 無彩限のファントム・ワールド | Musaigen no Phantom World | Myriad Colors Phantom World (Anime)
Genre: ADHD, Alternate Physics, Alternate Universe, Asperger's Syndrome, Demisexual!Miles "Tails" Prower, Demisexuality, F/M, Fluff, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Love, Romance, Slice of Life, grey ace, mutual respect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27330454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charles_Rockafellor/pseuds/Charles_Rockafellor
Summary: Tails the Fox and Amy [Wong] (an AI) were long star-crossed, lost to each other for over a decade of his life, though only a blink of the eye in her discontinuous existence.  Reunited of late through the magnanimity of a god-like being, they began their life together again, and Tails designed a variant liquid Terminator body for Amy (at her request) soon thereafter.  A few months into their adjustment period, we join them now in quieter moments to see what things are like when they're not busy fighting dragons and saving the world.“Dimidium” is intended to look at some slices of life, presented as a set of vignettes.  They don't tell a continuous story as such, instead filling in the flavor of things in the between moments.𝑫𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝑳𝒊𝒌𝒆, 𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑺𝒖𝒃𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒃𝒆! ❤️
Relationships: Amy Wong / Miles "Tails" Prower
Series: Love against the darkness [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1751167
Kudos: 2
Collections: Family, Light World, Love and romance





	1. Precious moments

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: For the longest time now, I've wanted to explore the relationship between Tails and Amy (an in-story AI version of Amy Wong from Futurama, not Amy Rose from the Sonic franchise). It had to wait until the events of “I am Legion”, then I wanted to first finish that and my other WIPs, then there were so many other plots and plot bunnies clamoring for attention. 
> 
> For clarity: Tails is AS/HFA (I am too, so don't get your feathers ruffled), and presents as demi- or ace; these happen both to be separately true of him, and not meant to convey some conflation. 
> 
> Tails and Amy are soulmates, enormous friends, and deeply involved; I think that it'll eventually be fully sexual (if it isn't already), but that's their thing (I'm certain that they'd automatically overshare if it occurred to them, but it could very well be that they are and it just hasn't come up in conversation). I picture Tails as probably-demisexual and eventually-sex-positive for her only, and Amy as... libidinously oriented (that is: her TX body isn't ruled by hormones, she governs them on command much as real-world people can prep for an amusement park or a 5K run). 
> 
> Maybe I can even use it to springboard into Ruru's ambiguous sexuality (she's a crude-humored flirt in this series, in contrast to her more reserved and well mannered canon original of the “Musaigen no Phantom World” anime), but I've never felt her character actually wish to pursue things any further than jokes (any sex) and hugs (especially with Princess-now-Queen-as-Imperial-Consort Peach). She certainly knows romance and how to nudge people who need to be together, but I still don't know if she's romantically inclined or aro herself. NB: for those interested in background basics, there's an excellent video to start with:  
>  “How To Write Asexual Characters 2.0 ~ Best Practices!” JulianGreystoke (Jun 21, 2019)  
>  ▐► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaRNXTyMyig

“ _Nandayo?!?_ A... _cumbermelon_?” Ruru asked, staring at Tails, her eyes momentarily darting back to the oddity on her plate a few times before he could answer. They presented a surreal picture, a foot tall Genie-looking Kaijin wearing a gauzy and revealing harem-outfit and a four foot tall two-tailed Fox debating genetically modified fruit.

Amy was all proud smiles, reaching over and squeezing his hand. Brilliant as they both were, it was always nice for either when the other surprised them with some new gem.

Tails gave this some serious thought before nodding, “Precisely. The name is arguably incomplete in that although it _does_ combine the flavor profiles of watermelon and cucumber, it also blends in those of cantaloupe and honeydew melons, as well as the textures of these latter, the snap of the cucumber, and the cucumber rind's full edibility – but naming conventions do tend to center on simpler, catchier names.”

Ruru waited for his explanation to wind down.

“Baka desu. What was wrong with them before that?”

He blinked, trying to filter her meaning and thrust from her choice of words. There were always so many layers with everyone.

_Almost everyone_ , he amended, thinking of Amy.

“Why couldn't we just eat them normally, without your weird thing here?” Ruru expanded, frowning slightly as she poked at a few pieces.

Relieved to have more information to work with, he told her of how Sonic was always seeking one balance or another for his soups and salads and dishes in general, and of how this had gotten him thinking about the relevant parameters. He'd analyzed all of the data available in general, though with just their own group as the target audience, and generated an appropriate genome that expressed as the multiple phenotypes before her.

This took him a few minutes to relate, but he'd been careful to stick to only the most salient parts of the story, trying hard not to actually tell her of all of the steps involved and the fascinating outliers and strange attractors that he'd encountered along the way. Double checking what he'd said, he beamed at himself for having managed a nice, simple answer.

Ruru surveyed the rest of the table. Country-cured Black Forest truffle-hamato with a cherry-citric undertone, molasses flavored onion-beans, a hybrid oolong-jasmine-orange-pekoe tea, mead berries whose juice came pre-fermented, curry-chicken that he'd been quick to point out needed no currying to serve...

She shook her head. He just didn't exactly “get it.”

Eyeballing the eggs suspiciously, she picked one up to inspect it. Slightly slippery and white, egg-shaped; this presented no problem. It was the complex scent and spots of color that worried her.

“What have you done to these eggs?” she asked, a note of concern spacing her words and drawing each one out.

“They come already containing bacon bits, short threads of cheese, and shreds of potato. The one that you're holding also has diced tomato, onion, and a few different bell peppers.”

“And this...?” she asked, waving a half-eaten slice of toast.

Tails cocked his head to the side, stymied by her insufficiently couched question.

“Why is it full of butter and jelly?” she continued.

“Margarine and jam, and it's for expedience. That is, it's to save time,” he replied.

“What's wrong with simply spreading things?”

“Incorporating the key ingredients ensures a more thorough experience and eliminates messes,” he said. The answer seemed obvious to him, but he was used to this. People generally asked things that didn't need explanations, sometimes to start a conversation that was entirely unrelated, and other times for no sensible reason whatsoever.

She hadn't yet touched the sushi-burrito-eggrolls, but he still held high hopes for them.

Predictably enough, for all of her complaining, Ruru nevertheless managed to make all of the food disappear – and ask for more, of course.

Back in their room, Amy hugged him close.

“I'm so glad that your presentation went well, Miles... and proud of you for it. They were all delicious, and I'm sure that all of Hyrule will appreciate that even more, once it gets out how zone-hardy they are, not to mention their nutrition and calorie profiles.”

Her eyes strayed to the bed in passing, but that remained an uncertainty.

He seemed receptive with a distinct pupillary dilation, his thermal distribution just about right, heartbeat and galvanic readings rising slightly, along with a few stray pheromones supporting this spectrographically. Weighted box and whisker tensors argued that hormone flooding would be optimal now, but the probability fans – while quiescent – weren't entirely smooth at this juncture. Yes: he was indeed reasonably inclined, but also ambivalent at the moment.

“How are you feeling, anyway? Stressed? Maybe a nap, or a massage...? Hot chocolate and sandwiches, and some snuggling with a movie?” she asked as she drew back, still holding his hands now. His bright orange fur might present a striking contrast to her midnight blue skin **1** , but they fit well together.

Her hopes were very much set on something rather more involved – more _personal_ – but would be perfectly happy with some warm-fuzzy time, and wasn't inclined to push him in any direction. Especially not in this regard.

He considered the options presented, their open schedule and the time of day, and allowing for a third category of other possibilities, and of course potential unknowns...

“Would all of these be OK?” he began, warming to the plan, “We can get something to eat while we make the sandwiches, and maybe the others will join us on the sofas, especially if we make extra snacks, and then bed for a while?”

_Both?_ , she thought, threading some subroutines for family time and electing to run a low-level romantic algorithm with a background sexual tension module set to a mildly seductive ambiance theme _'both' is good..._

Between Zelda and Peach, Sonic and the three Fridays **2** , Ruru (if there were food to be had, then there was no doubt of her attendance), and Mister Fluffykins and the cats (Fluffykins was in a class of his own, having been granted full sophance and physical uplifting **3** ), they were sure to have some company, and likely conversation, debates over what to watch, presumably a marathon... it would be nice. A warm-fuzzy bonding experience of shared time. It sounded to her like a satisfactory compromise.

_Doubly nice to have Miles sitting in my lap beneath a blanket, or just rest my head in his lap while he plays with my ears..._

That afternoon and on into the evening, they all gathered 'round to enjoy a command performance of _The Nutcracker Suite_ as reinterpreted by the Royal Dandelion and Mushroom Troupe. The troupe actually had some Fairies and several races of Flowers and a few Newts, but had originally been founded as a small band and the name had stuck. Their version was an unusual interpretation involving opera, ballet, and normal stage play, and incorporating Valkyrjur and a ring that possessed several shielding and parrying magics, with a surprising plot twist involving the protagonists' ascension to a higher level of existence, though this had been subtly foreshadowed early in the hero's journey. They finished the evening with a few episodes of _Spell Trek: Sojourner_ _ **4** in a particularly captivating story arc wherein the first episode's world of Amaranth's **5** (a spattered thing, long since frozen in the moment of its explosive dissolution) laws of magic were being swung like a pendulum to suit the whims of a mustachioed villain and his idiotic sidekick from one of the far-flung worlds of the show's improbable constellation of unusual bodies sailing along their haphazard orbits through the show's air-filled island universe. After that play, this made for much lighter material. It also drew the cats back, as usual._

__

The Spell Trek episodes were well written, but with the same predictable love-romance-sex tropes littered throughout, and of course a subplot of one of the characters “smitten” with love for one of the aliens, and spending half of an episode trying to get laid. It looked as if the director were aware of this too, given the burning garbage dumpster to be seen floating down a flooded street toward the end of that.

__

Zelda and Peach were completely taken with both, in their different ways. Zelda a little moody but hopeful with the play, and lost in the shiny high-magic of the show; Peach swooning at the play's valiant hero, and rooting for the show's alien love interest. Through it all, she was fairly sure that one or the other of them got up to something beneath their blanket every so often, based on the occasional sudden twitch or hushed gasp. Sonic and the Fridays seemed to just be enjoying the evening's programs as they came, with a fair number of trips for more snacks for everyone. She expected that the four of them would likely have their own fun in private later, and could almost bet that she'd be woken by Peach's happy noises at some point in the night.

__

All of this hit home uncomfortably for Amy.

__

On the one hand, she got it. With Tails so close that she'd be able to smell him even with only Human olfactory senses, his body warm and soft and right there with her. On the other hand, she got it. Sometimes it was nice to simply follow a story – _or any real-world social interaction, for that matter_ , she observed – without having to add sex to the mix, and people were people rather than just available access to sexual relief. That piece of dichotomous irony was perhaps a bit too on-point.

__

Still a little upset with herself as they adjourned for the night, she found their bath greatly relieving. Adjusting the tub to a reclined position, they both found it soothing enough to nod off at moments; to lean back and soak, just holding Tails and talking about nothing in particular. She did end up giving him a massage before bed, but was happy to slowly drift away afterward as he read her to sleep.

__

__

__

**O ~~~ O**

__

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **1** Midnight blue skin: Amy's an AI of Futurama's Amy Wong in a body that's basically a TX (liquid metal Terminator), but her “natural” default appearance is that of Mystique (of Marvel comics and their cinematic universe extension) – or “skinny naked midnight-blue pinecone” as Sonic put it in “I am Legion”.
> 
> **2** Friday: A Deku Scrub; one of a triplet budding; they share some degree of group awareness. For more details, see “Sonic's Redemption”.
> 
> **3** Mister Fluffykins (“Deathclaw”): See the events of “Deathclaw: the tale of Mister Fluffykins” on AO3 and the WIP (too incomplete to post to AO3 even as a WIP) “I am Legion” (at  
>  ▐► https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BG7P_sVezz8Dn5b8js_34yeAjSBhfN0v ).
> 
> **4** “Spell Trek: Sojourner”: Picture ST:VOY with a D&D Spelljammer / Space 1889 spin, set against a Firefly backdrop. Now sprinkle in a bit of Roger MacBride Allen's “The Ring of Charon” / “The Shattered Sphere” and Michael Reaves's “The Shattered World ” / “The Burning Realm”. Note: not my 2e Necrognomicon setting, a clockwork solar system built by mad Tinker Gnome Gods.
> 
> **5** Amaranth: A world of my own design for 2e D&D, imagined as a “What if?” scenario riffing on “The Shattered World ”. This Spelltrek arc describes the module that I had outlined for it c 2000-2004, then outlined as a fiction story that I never finished writing. Combine “Defy not the heart” as the low level search for a suitable marriage partner, with the heroine discovering that she has some Genasi heritage for the mid-level arc, and battling a Temple of Elemental Evil / Indiana Jones chaotic evil death-cult in the midst of giant monsters phasing in and out of the world à la “Monsters” (2010) “Evolution” (2001) and “Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within”.


	2. Head-fog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demisexual isn't synonymous with no libido, it just means that a certain mood needs to be struck, and Amy's just struck that mood.

Amy awoke and stretched comfortably, debating getting out of bed, but it was just so comfortable, the temperature and slight breezes and dull reddish-golden lighting just right in their sleeping pod, soft food and cave scents and the faint background sound of jungles and beaches wafting around them; Tails said that they reminded him of their old dungeon home on Monte Mortis, where he'd lived for his first four years in Light World. There was no need for it physically, not in the imperial apartments, not given either their durability or lethality nor that of the others, not given all of the years that he had spent out on the road, and certainly not to the extent that he had overbuilt this thing – it maintained active and passive sensors, could act as a fully functioning lifepod for two indefinitely, and would easily withstand a direct ortillery **1** bombardment – but it gave him a psychological comfort to have his private little cave-within-a-cave, almost an emotional hug. Of course he had insisted on installing similar arrangements for everyone else's beds, including the cats' room, and then the apartments as a whole, and then extended the same to _Storm Strider's_ cabins.

Smiling, she decided that breakfast could wait a little longer – French toast, sausage, scrambled eggs, and bacon sounded wonderful, but where she was right now was perfect. Wrapping one arm above Tails's head and the other across his waist, she snuggled closer around him and drifted off again, the sound of his calm breathing against her chest lulling her back to sleep.

“I know that I know it, and it works while I read the Encyclopædia **2** , but it still bothers me that it slips away like a hippopotamus's butt-leech in a white hole,” Tails vented.

Apparently, he was trying to “normalize” his speech through the introduction of evocative simile. With Sonic, Zelda, and Peach as models, and his own fascinating idiom, it certainly made for some unusual choices on his part.

They were in the middle of Light World's “lunar” region. Light World had an actual moon, a physical one that ran the same course as the sun from the rise-hole deep in the Ice thousands of miles away to the east, across the sky, and down into the set-hole in the Ice thousands of miles away to the west, these both being far beyond the eastern and western lava poles. This “lunar” region was more of a very large area orbital focus of zooic **3** energies and morphogenic fields that moved around Light World in an egg-shaped path on the surface of The Ice, its aphelion and perihelion precessing over the year. They were still trying to pin down what drove the energies and fields, and the rosette path that the region followed, but right now were on site to examine the riotous profusion of lifeforms that arose with the arrival of the focus, reproducing while it remained present, and returning to hibernation upon its departure. Some had adapted to riding the leading or trailing edges of the focus itself, some cycling around the turbulent sides, and some taking predatory or otherwise invested risk of living just in front of or behind these edges.

It had turned out to be a wonderfully productive week, and they were both exceedingly pleased with their results.

“It's just – well. I don't want to go through every step and get that head-haziness again, but you know the whole thing. You start with a Higgs field and wonder about canceling it, and that leads to a Higgs slope and FTL, but that requires an imaginary mass, except where does that requirement stem from? So you start from Lorentz **4** and plug in some V greater than C, which of course yields a negative in the denominator's radical – and none of this directly prohibits the energy sign being other than positive real in any event, nor does it address the mass build-up of the energy associated with a body's increasing speed... and then you're left staring at permeability and wondering what led you there in the first place, and a vague feeling that there's a spatial resistance that squishes things almost like Hagedorn,” he stared at his hands, frustrated and miserable.

“I'll tell you what, Miles: how about we work on it as soon as we get back home to the lab?” she replied, “My search algorithms turned up a few steganographic palimpsests in the Encyclop _æ_ dia's engram articles that kind of approach the virus-fog sideways. I think the Diamond Trolls **5** would be interested in helping with it, too. I was saving it as a surprise for the weekend, but you sound like you could use the pick-me-up.”

Tails's face lit up at this as he leaned in to hug her.

“Thank you!” he cried, kissing her face and neck.

She giggled, his fur tickling pleasantly.

Leaning back as they were, the thick moss beneath them prickled softly, almost massaging their skins. Strange fish-things hydrofoiled along on top of the pond, their fins squirting tiny jets of water behind them, some hunting cotton-candy birds, others performing mating dances and flashing beautiful patterns of color. The late afternoon sun warm on them from the focal dome's magnifying effect and second lunch filling their bellies – grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with crispy lettuce leading into roast beef heroes with gravy (both made with whole multigrain flour, dense and rich with a dozen different kinds of seeds), carrots, bananas, grapes, a lemon-honey yogurt with blueberries and açaí, and all followed by bits of chicken in gelled juice and drippings to munch on afterward – their dale was a perfect moment for her.

Tails continued to sail within at the thought of unlocking the mental fog that the engram viruses caused, nuzzling Amy's shoulder. In so doing, her general nakedness wended its way into his awareness. This was nothing new, it just never really came into play – he wore socks and sneakers for practical reasons, and sometimes used gloves for work purposes; the same applied to Sonic. The Fridays didn't wear anything at all, though their Deku Scrub bodies produced some feather-like leaves that gave an appearance of clothing. Zelda, Peach, and Ruru certainly wore clothing fairly often, but typically went about in one state of undress or another when in the imperial apartments or while adventuring. Amy... her body was liquid metal of a sort, and she simply gave it whatever external appearance might be appropriate, but she generally didn't bother with this, and so it never registered for him, not even when bathing or going to bed. Now though, there was a different feeling in the air. A happy moment that he wanted to share with her.

Moving a little uncertainly, he shifted closer, rubbing himself tentatively against her hip.

At first she didn't notice or think anything meaningful of it, but soon enough she realized what he was trying to propose.

She turned her eyes to him without haste, not wanting to put him on the spot or focus too strongly on this. He held her gaze as he slid his hand across her chest a little awkwardly.

Instantly analyzing every readout at her disposal, she found no doubt of his intention.

Flooding her every system with appropriate mixes, she called up her most engaging protocols, tailored specifically for Tails's psychology and tastes; sometimes he surprised her, of course, and his surprises were always so much fun, but whatever he might be in the mood for, she could always count on his favorites to work their wonders on him. In moments, her body was ready for him, and she began to emit a thin cloud of pleasure- and interest-enhancing chemicals. It wasn't often that he expressed himself thus, and she would never emit these to drive his body to it, but she always made sure that each time that he did was as thoroughly involving and enduring as possible.

Being out here on the Ice focus, alone, offered innumerable possibilities. Amy was his other half, his very soul, and sometimes she needed things. She was the only one who had ever stirred these responses in him, but they felt right. They fit right. They even felt nice, and it was always a special sort of fulfilling to see her patent pleasure, to hear her sighs and squeaks. The air had taken on that special sweet tang that she always put on for him at times like this – one that brought with it its own mental fog, this one being a mental fog that he was always happy to give himself over to – and he planned to make her as happy as he could, taking the time and attention to explore her every passion and ensure her well-sated exhaustion, though he knew that this was a literal impossibility. Brushing his nose along her arm and ribs, he inhaled her scents, letting them work their way through him, his tongue scraping slightly, teasing her as he thought of later, when he would ask her to increase her emissions and heighten his body's natural responses.

She turned herself gently toward him, lifting a leg and bringing it behind him as their shared sensorium adjusted the world around them ever so slightly.

They had another week scheduled here for research, but they could always extend that or come back again – and since they planned to spend a further week exploring the luminary tunnel, there was a good chance that Tails might find himself buoyed so the whole time.

Forgetting all of this, her eyes closed as she lost herself in his kiss, her skin afire at his touch as her desire within rose unbridled.

**O ~~~ O**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **1** Ortillery: [IAW “Sonic's Redemption”] a portmanteau of “orbital artillery”, called down when ground attacks and pulsed masers and air-to-surface fusion nukes just won't get the message across. Strictly, CMEs might not exactly qualify as ortillery, and relativistic masses are generally overkill – but there's always someone. Conventional speeds would likely also be used, since they would tend to pack an impacting and explosive punch, whereas the higher speeds would tend to result in HALO EMPs and deep penetration (say: crust and mantle); picture the difference between a hammer fist to a firm surface and a single fore-knuckle strike to a soft area.
> 
> **2** Encyclopædia: Long-time readers of this series can skip this footnote, but those somehow beginning here might need some clarification. Encyclopædiae, in this context, aren't the ink-on-paper or HTML versions that you're used to. Instead, picture something like a vastly Siri-upgraded Kryptonian crystal – a fully interactive, intuitive, and self-aware AI with the informational resources of Star Trek's Federation or a fully galactic civilization (or still larger, more powerful entities) at its instantaneous disposal, and all held within the subatomic interactions and made infinitely divisible through an application of the Banach-Tarski theorem.
> 
> **3** Zooic energies: [IAW “When Hermione met Harry”] The hodge-podge of primal stuff associated with life itself, such as psionic energy and crystals, positive and negative chi, mutational bio-energy, electroplasmic aethers.
> 
> **4** Lorentz: Most people in general have heard of E = m c2, though they might not necessarily be familiar with the relevant units of energy, mass, or speed. This isn't the place for it, so no 101 here guys. However, a lot of geeks who would be interested might not know of the more expanded form that incorporates the Lorentz factor: E = m c2 / √ (1 - (v2 / c2)). That's what Tails is referring to.
> 
> **5** Diamond Trolls: Not related (any more than any two “unrelated” species might be in Icewall) to the Trolls of Jötunheimr, these are pretty much exactly the Trolls of Discworld. They live in an Ice-mining city (almost Kryptonian in nature, though less advanced, perhaps Kardashёv Type I.5, and with a more philosophical bent) a few thousand miles to the north of Light World, and were discovered on one of Tails's and Amy's recon flights several months after the events of “I am Legion”.


End file.
